by Ron Chernow
Because of the purity of his motives, Rawlins became Grant’s closest friend. “Gen. Grant was a man who made friends very slowly,” noted a journalist. “While he had a great many acquaintances, I think he had a very limited circle of friends—I mean men whom he trusted or whose advice he accepted.”75 Only Rawlins could penetrate the zone of privacy that Grant drew subtly about himself. With his single-minded devotion, Rawlins could confront him with uncomfortable truths and fiercely contest his judgment, spouting opinions in a stentorian voice. With his thoroughgoing skepticism and mistrust of people, he was the ideal foil to Grant’s excessively trusting nature. Rawlins “was always getting excited about something that had been done to Grant,” recalled Lieutenant Frank Parker. When someone showed disrespect for Grant, “he would prance around and say, ‘General, I would not stand such things’ to which Grant would say, ‘Oh, Rawlins! what’s the use in getting excited over a little thing like that; it doesn’t hurt me and it may make the other fellow feel a little good.’”76
Perhaps because it contrasted vividly with his listless manner at the Galena store, Rawlins never forgot his initial glimpse of Grant at Cairo: “He had an office in a great bank there, and I was amazed at the quiet, prompt way in which he handled the multitude of letters, requisitions, and papers, sitting behind the cashier’s window-hole, with a waste basket under him, and orderlies to dispatch business as he did.”77 Fresh from personal calamity, Rawlins threw himself into a whirl of military activity. Before long, he worked day and night, tidying up Grant’s office, creating files, and instituting sound working procedures. Long politically active—Grant thought him the most influential young man in northern Illinois—Rawlins also assisted Grant in perfecting his relations with Washington. When Washburne boasted to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase that Grant in Cairo was “doing wonders in bringing order out of chaos,” Rawlins surely deserved much of the credit.78
Such was the influence of John Rawlins over Grant that some observers would later exaggerate or misinterpret the nature of his power, attributing to him the military acumen that properly belonged to Grant. He had excellent common sense and swiftly grasped many basic principles of warfare, especially the need to concentrate forces instead of spreading them too thinly. And he became a formidable warrior in his own right, personally signing off on every letter and plan of campaign that came from Grant’s command and never hesitating to differ with him. Nevertheless, Rawlins had no military background and lacked Grant’s general knowledge of warfare. He could never have done what Grant did. While Grant developed tremendous respect for Rawlins’s fearless judgment, it was Grant who originated the plans, Grant who improvised in the heat of battle, and Grant who possessed the more sophisticated strategic sense.
CHAPTER EIGHT
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Twin Forts
FROM THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR, Abraham Lincoln recognized the pivotal role of Kentucky, a centrally located buffer state between North and South. “I hope to have God on my side,” he admonished colleagues, “but I must have Kentucky.”1 Another time he reflected, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”2 With Kentucky, Confederates would be camped on the Ohio River, positioned to strike the North. And with Kentucky gone, Maryland and Missouri might follow suit, weighting the scales to southern victory.
Although nominally on the Union side, Kentucky turned into a state of wavering loyalty, bitterly riven in its tendencies. Much as in neighboring Missouri, homegrown secessionists flocked to State Guard regiments organized by Governor Beriah Magoffin, while Unionists manned their Home Guard counterparts. Despite his southern inclinations, Magoffin warned both the Union and the Confederacy that any violation of Kentucky’s neutrality would push his state into the opposing camp. Despite covert support to Kentucky Unionists, Lincoln carefully upheld the pose of neutrality, forbidding Union commanders from invading the state.
The Confederacy blundered by invading Kentucky first, the interloper being a man of the cloth, Major General Leonidas Polk. Tall with silvery hair, a broad face, and sideburns, Polk had attended West Point only to renounce his military career and become an Episcopal bishop in Louisiana. When the war started, his West Point friend Jefferson Davis lured the Fighting Bishop back into military uniform. When Polk dispatched Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow to seize Columbus on the Mississippi River, in Kentucky’s southwest corner, he was immediately upbraided by superiors and told to withdraw, but he had correctly guessed that Grant planned to advance on the town, which marked the intersection of a key railroad with the Mississippi River. After Confederate forces threw a chain across the river to obstruct navigation and installed 140 guns on its steep bluffs, Columbus for a time constituted a more important Confederate fortress on the Mississippi than Vicksburg itself. If taking Columbus seemed a masterstroke from a military standpoint, it counted as a colossal political error. It destroyed any pretense of Kentucky neutrality, incited the state legislature to a more belligerent Unionism, and opened the way for Union forces to march into the state under a banner of liberation.
Now free to enter Kentucky, with an irresistible opportunity to make his mark, Grant eyed a prize much greater than Columbus: Paducah. On September 5, a Union spy imparted crucial information: Confederate forces were preparing to move on Paducah, which stood about forty-five miles northeast of Cairo. Speed meant everything. The town lay at the juncture of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, making it the perfect springboard for securing Confederate territory. No less important, it stood near the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland Rivers and was thus the linchpin for river traffic in the whole area. The seizure of Paducah would also sever Confederate supply lines and isolate the high fortifications at Columbus. Before moving on the town, Grant telegraphed Frémont twice that he intended to launch the operation at 6:30 p.m. The deadline expired without any response from Frémont. In a high state of nervous tension, Grant delayed his start until 10 p.m. “I can wait no longer,” he said at last. “I will go if it costs me my commission!”3 Although Grant had anticipated Frémont’s wish, he acted solely on his own initiative. For a man long crippled by doubt and stalled in his life, it was a step of breathtaking audacity, displaying a more forceful, direct, and aggressive Grant. He herded two well-equipped regiments and an artillery battery aboard steamers and headed up the Ohio River, escorted by two gunboats. If this mission failed, responsibility fell on his shoulders alone.
As he approached Paducah, he beheld a town awash with Confederate flags in anticipation of the arrival of Confederate troops, but the quick-witted Grant beat them to the punch and the town fell without a shot. The political dimension of the operation proved far trickier since Grant needed to reassure a civilian population traumatized by his advent of his peaceful intentions: “I never after saw such consternation depicted on the faces of the people. Men, women and children came out of their doors looking pale and frightened at the presence of the invader.”4
To pacify them, Grant issued a proclamation boldly written in the first person. He cleverly assumed that he was addressing loyal people and made common cause with them:
I have come among you, not as an enemy, but as your friend and fellow-citizen, not to injure or annoy you, but to respect the rights, and to defend and enforce the rights of all loyal citizens. An enemy, in rebellion against our common government, has taken possession of, and planted its guns upon the soil of Kentucky and fired upon our flag . . . He is moving upon your city. I am here to defend you against this enemy and to assert and maintain the authority and sovereignty of your Government and mine.5
For the first time, Grant demonstrated his fine political tact and a command of the English language that would assist his success. He only stayed in Paducah for a day, leaving behind strict instructions that occupying soldiers should refrain from plunder and respect the rights of residents. When Lincoln set eyes on Grant’s proclamation, he was impressed. “The modesty and brevity of that address shows that th
e officer issuing it understands the situation and is a proper man to command there at this time.”6 Elihu Washburne touted Grant for major general, reporting to him from Washington that his Paducah actions “had attracted the attention of the President and met with his approval.”7 The combined movements of Polk at Columbus and Grant at Paducah led the Kentucky legislature to demand the expulsion of Confederate forces from the state.
Grant was buoyed by his sudden triumph. “You have seen my move upon Paducah Ky!” he wrote to Julia. “It was of much greater importance than is probably generally known.”8 It was not in Grant’s nature to boast, but the reversal in his fortunes was so startling he could scarcely resist. “I suppose you have seen from the papers that I have quite an extensive and important command. It is third in importance in the country and Gen. Frémont seems desirous of retaining me in it.”9 Exuberantly confident, he asked Julia to send their son Fred to join him for the campaign. Not long after the town surrendered, Julia went to Paducah and had a conversation that shows her speedy conversion into an ardent Unionist. She told a female resident, “It is dreadful; why, this mania for secession seems to be epidemic throughout the South.” To which the woman retorted: “Mania! Mania! Madam! Epidemic! Madam! Why the whole South has gone ravin’ mad!”10
After Paducah, Grant yearned to move on Columbus, but he could not obtain Frémont’s approval or even elicit a reply. By November 1, he would have twenty thousand well-trained men and was eager to use them, but he had to endure a lull in the fighting. He was still frightfully busy with paperwork at Cairo, even if now helped by Rawlins and a competent staff, and he stayed up until two every morning responding to mail. On September 13, he received word that his brother Simpson had died of tuberculosis near St. Paul, Minnesota, and he was profoundly saddened. The body was shipped to his own house in Galena before the burial, which was attended by Jesse Grant and his daughters. Ulysses was too busy to join them and Jesse sent him Simpson’s watch as a keepsake. “I want to preserve it to the last day of my life,” Grant told Julia, “and want my children to do the same thing, in remembrance of poor Simp. who carried it in his lifetime.”11
In late October, General Frémont took the field in Missouri against Major General Sterling Price, the former governor of the state. Grant rushed troops to help him and sent three thousand men under Colonel Oglesby to pursue M. Jeff Thompson as well. On November 5, he received word that the Confederate garrison at Columbus intended to divert troops to Price. Thus, to protect Union forces in Missouri, Grant decided to undertake an operation against Belmont, a small, muddy Missouri town with a steamboat landing that was controlled by the enemy and stood directly across the Mississippi from Columbus. Unlike other Union generals, who freely invented excuses for inaction, the restless Grant always scanned the horizon for reasons to fight. “There is but very little doubt . . . that we can hold this place,” he told Julia from Cairo. “What I want is to advance.”12 At first, he was only supposed to make a “demonstration” against Belmont and Columbus—that is, harass and distract the Confederates. Then, after learning on November 6 about Frémont’s dismissal, he took advantage of the momentary confusion to initiate more decisive action. After his hard knocks during the prewar period, one might have expected him to be pessimistic, cautious, and self-doubting. Instead he was becoming the most self-confident of Union commanders, perhaps needing to wipe away the stigma of earlier failures in civilian life—failures that had implanted in him a high level of motivation that no other general could quite match.
Now swinging into action, Grant poured five regiments (about three thousand men) onto four transports, accompanied by two wooden gunboats, and moved to within six miles of Columbus. The transports were so overloaded that Grant had to sleep on a deck chair on the ship. Then, at two in the morning on November 7, Grant learned that rebel troops were being ferried across the Mississippi from Columbus to Belmont—troops that might operate against Colonel Oglesby in his hot pursuit of Thompson in Missouri. (The report proved inaccurate.) When setting out from Cairo, Grant had no idea that he was about to blaze into aggressive action. But keenly attuned to the psychology of his men, he feared they had grown dangerously restive in the fetid, unhealthy atmosphere of Cairo and knew a battle would revitalize their energy.
Not long after dawn, Grant and his men sailed down the Mississippi and disembarked a few miles upstream from Belmont, on the river’s west side. “The early autumnal morning was delightful,” wrote Dr. Brinton. “The air fresh and invigorating, without being cold.”13 Since it would be impossible to hold terrain with Confederate guns frowning down on them across the river, Grant expected to make a lightning strike and asked his soldiers to carry a mere two days’ rations in their haversacks. This was the first time Grant presided over a full army in combat, and many of his untested men were newcomers to battle. He marched them toward Belmont, guided them through clearings and dense forests, then formed them into clear lines. Once General Polk got wind of Grant’s move, he swiftly parried the advance, moving five regiments to hold off the Union incursion.
Around 9 a.m., when they met enemy regiments under General Pillow, Grant’s units reacted with tremendous esprit de corps. They obeyed his orders “with great alacrity,” he said, “the men all showing great courage.”14 Union soldiers clambered over brush and fallen timber, chasing Confederates through the thick woods in a furiously contested fight. Buoyed by high spirits, the youthful soldiers began to fire indiscriminately at the rebels. “Stop the men,” Grant yelled on horseback at Rawlins, “they are wasting ammunition.”15 Even leather-lunged Rawlins couldn’t make himself heard above the din, so Grant galloped close to officers, leaned down, and hollered in their ears, “Don’t fire till you see somebody, and then take good aim.”16 He didn’t yet trust his subordinates or know their skills and had to perform many tasks he later delegated to others. Grant’s horse was shot from under him and he swapped it for another. Swept up in the whirlwind of battle, he stayed coolheaded and composed, manifesting a fierce tenacity. He also showed he was fully prepared to share risks with his men and inspire them by his presence.
When they encountered a long line of felled trees with sharpened points—a so-called abatis—Union forces smashed through these defenses, throwing the startled rebels back against the riverbank. After four hours of torrid fighting, the rebel withdrawal broke down into a disorderly rout. Suddenly, to their astonishment, Grant’s men possessed the Confederate camp, strewn with food, baggage, and artillery. This unexpected conquest was too tempting for novice soldiers and discipline collapsed on the spot. Flushed with victory, transported by powerful emotions, the men began to plunder the site for trophies, sent up cheers, declaimed premature speeches, and generally acted as if the battle had ended. Grant could not stop them from crowing over their feat, his sound strategy undone by this amateur behavior. In stopping to exult and loot the camp, his men failed to pursue the Confederates, who flocked to the riverbank and regrouped.
Soon rebels began to creep back toward the camp, this time strongly reinforced from Columbus. “I saw . . . two steamers coming from the Columbus side towards the west shore, above us, black—or gray—with soldiers from boiler-deck to roof,” said Grant.17 Faced with this ominous sight, he futilely tried to get his men to shoot at the steamers. When this failed, he ordered the camp set ablaze. No longer worried about hitting their own soldiers, Confederate cannoneers, firing from the Columbus heights, rained down shells on Grant’s troops, who went from rejoicing to sheer terror as they thought themselves surrounded. They had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Grant stemmed the panic, recalling, “When I announced that we had cut our way in and could cut our way out just as well, it seemed a new revelation to officers and soldiers.”18 Averting disaster, he reversed the psychology of the moment, leading his men to carve out an avenue of escape and battle their way back to safety aboard their steamboat transports. Extricated from danger, petrified Union soldiers rushed pell-mell onto the waiting
boats. As one mate remembered, “They rushed across [to] the other side of the boat till she listed over so that one wheel went whirling around uselessly in the air.”19
After supervising the embarkation of wounded soldiers, Grant scouted the area on horseback, checking on guards he had posted to prevent attacks on the transports. To his surprise, the guards had fled. As he crossed a cornfield, he came within view of General Polk, who advised his riflemen, “There is a Yankee; you may try your marksmanship on him if you wish.”20 Luckily for Grant, nobody fired. The boats were about to push off when one captain, his boat’s smokestack blasted with bullets, spied Grant on the steep riverbank, waiting to come aboard. For a moment it was unclear how he could do this since the boat had cut its lines and floated slightly offshore. “My horse put his fore feet over the bank without hesitation or urging,” Grant wrote, “and with his hind feet well under him, slid down the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over a single gang plank.”21 It was an exquisite display of horsemanship by Grant, who characteristically credited the horse.
Grant lay down on a sofa in the captain’s stateroom when he was startled by a fusillade of rebel musketry. As he went to inspect the situation, a bullet flew through the room and struck the sofa where he had just been. It was the harrowing conclusion of a day of heavy fighting. On the trip back to Cairo, the officers dined and engaged in animated discussion, while Grant, with customary sangfroid, officiated in silence at the head of the table. “We thought he was hard-hearted, cold and indifferent,” noted one soldier, “but it was only the difference between a real soldier and amateur soldiers.”22
